Publication from Jenny Jones: The Surveillance State

Date published:

11 January 2015

The Mayor is failing to hold the police to account and champion civil liberties, according to this report published by Jenny Jones.

Jenny discovered that she was on the Met Police's database of domestic extremists in 2012, and had been on it for the previous ten years, including her time as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority whose job it was to hold the police to account. In December 2015 she confronted the Commissioner of the Met Police about her continued presence on their files:

The Special Demonstration Squad was based at New Scotland Yard for 40 years and used under-cover officers to track trade unionists, peace activists and green campaigners. This complete waste of money culminated in a set of under-cover officers being paid to systematically invade the lives of several innocent women, so that the police could gain access to the network of campaigners they were connected to. The women took a civil action, which the Met Police tried to fight and lost, before eventually issuing an apology.

In recent years the police have been given powers to intercept communications under RIPA. Despite these powers being brought in under the guise of dealing with terrorism or serious and organised crime, there have been nearly a 100,000 requests a year signed off by the Met Police alone. Jenny has successfully pushed for judicial over-sight of requests for surveillance involving journalists and lawyers.

Jenny has been a prominent supporter of the right to protest and getting the Met Police to ‘facilitate’ protests. She has acted as an official monitor at many protests, seeing the demonstration from both sides of the police line.